


Ticket to Lucis

by StephirothWasTaken



Series: Steph's 25 Days of Christmas Fics Challenge [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Amputee, Christmas Fluff, Christmas but not Christmas, Disabled Characters, Gen, Gladio/Noctis Technically but unimportant, Holidays, M/M, Trains, Travelling for the Holidays, Undefined Illness, surprise visit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StephirothWasTaken/pseuds/StephirothWasTaken
Summary: Gladio has arranged to get two of Noctis's friends to travel to Insomnia and spend a holiday together.Ravus is travelling for the first time in all his 30 years, and he's happy to bring Luna with him.
Relationships: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret & Ravus Nox Fleuret
Series: Steph's 25 Days of Christmas Fics Challenge [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559509
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn’t intended on writing a little series about Ravus in my No Kingdom AU, but it looks like you’re getting one, anyway.
> 
> Just as a heads up, I still haven’t quite figured out what condition Luna has developed. It’s kind of a mixture of multiple things, and I hope it makes sense anyway.

As a little boy, Ravus had been fascinated with the train that began in Gralea, went through Tenebrae, and ended all the way in Cartanica. It was the longest train track ever built, but it was also ancient and slow, a lack of funding keeping it from being improved. Still, he had always wanted to see it, and he would finally get to ride it now that he has passed the age of thirty.

Ravus adjusted Luna’s blankets around her little body before he pushed her wheelchair over the ramp onto the platform where they would have to sit and wait until it was their turn to board. He had never seen her blue eyes dart around so much, and he worried that she was feeling overwhelmed, though she gave no signs of being upset.

Not yet, anyway.

“Are you warm enough, Luna?” Ravus asked.

Luna continued to stare at everyone passing them, and he took that as a sign she was fine.  
Ravus pushed her to a bench, and he sat down. He rubbed at the stump where his left arm had been taken from him as a vulnerable young boy. It sometimes hurt still to this day, even though it had been over twenty years ago now.

Ravus pulled out his ticket from his pocket, and he checked them over, checking the time. It was not unusual for the train to be as much as twenty minutes late, so even though it was time for them to board, he did not panic that the train had yet to arrive. He looked up at the digital board that alerted them to the expected arrival of the train, and it said that they could expect the train to be only five minutes late.

Ravus was already starting to feel numb from the cold, and he could not imagine how Lunafreya was feeling, being so much smaller than him.

He checked her blankets one more time, and it was a good thing because she had somehow untucked her blanket from beneath her left thigh.

An older man sat near them on the bench. It was not so concerning because there was no room for anyone else as so many people waited for the train. He held a steaming cup of something in both of his hands, and he gave Ravus a nod as their eyes met.

“You would think this old place would have a proper building, wouldn’t you?” the old man said. “It’s colder than Shiva’s womb out here.”

Ravus gave an involuntary chuckle at the unusual phrase, but he nodded.

“Below average temperatures for December this year.”

The old man shook his head as he took a sip from his mug.

“At least they can give us hot coffee,” he said. “I don’t want to think about trying to endure all of this without coffee.”

And yet Ravus was sitting there without coffee.

“Is she your family?” the old man asked. “Well, it’s none of my business, but I can’t stop myself from being nosy it seems.”

Luna was looking at the man as he spoke.

“She’s my little sister,” Ravus said, nodding.

“Oh? The two of you look nothing alike.”

The man leaned toward them, squinting his eyes to get a better look at them.

“Maybe the one blue eye you have,” he added. “Never seen anyone with one purple eye like that before. Is it artificial?”

“We were Imperial prisoners during the war. We were forced into experiments. Something they gave me changed the color permanently.”

The man gave him a solemn nod to that, and he said nothing more about it.

Every time Ravus mentioned the atrocities done to the children during the Great War, people would always clam up, afraid of asking questions that would upset him. It was kind in a way, but it was also funny how people who had not experienced it were more afraid to talk about it than the people who had experienced it.

They heard the train approaching then, and all thoughts of the Niflheim Empire stopped as Ravus looked for the train, standing to his full six and a half feet. There was no cloud of smoke billowing from the top of it like he had seen in all the old videos, but it was just as large as he expected, longer than the train by a few cars. The last car was the only solid black one with the Skylight Industries’ classic emblem of skulls and swords painted in gold in the center and on top.

It was the only car built to accommodate passengers with wheelchairs, showing the age of the train, and Skylight Industries had donated it to Tenebrae for the selfish reason of the owner’s son one day being able to use the train to visit his friend. Now it would help his friend visit him.  
Ravus turned Luna’s wheelchair so she could look at it herself, and he pointed at it with his one arm.

“Luna, look!” he said. “That’s Noctis’s company, isn’t it?”

His sister could not say more than soft grunts, but she wiggled in her wheelchair, displacing her blanket as she lifted a hand to reach toward it.

“A bit showy, though, isn’t it? Just like your friend.”

Ravus rearranged the blankets around Luna before he sat on the bench again. Luna grunted with impatience as they watched people file out of the train, and he rubbed her arm in an attempt to calm her down long enough for them to board the train.

“Ah, it looks like it’s our time to go,” the old man who had been speaking to them earlier said, and Ravus turned to him. “Have a safe trip!”

“You as well.”

The man waved at them as he walked toward the train.

“Looks like it’s our turn on the train, Luna, so you can finally look inside.”

Ravus checked her blanket again, and then he grabbed their heavy bag of essentials and looped it around his neck to keep himself from dropping it while he pushed Luna with his only remaining arm.

Luna’s wiggling got crazier the closer to the train they got, and Ravus felt a warmth spread in his chest, knowing that they finally got the chance to do something Luna had been wanting to do for a long time. It was so difficult to express herself with just grunts, cries, and wiggles, but mentions of visiting her friend had made her come to life in ways he had been struggling to do since the two of them were reunited as children.

There were a few other people making use of the ramp ahead of Ravus and Luna, and her little grunts were turning into cries the longer they had to wait with the train car in her vision.

“I know, Luna,” Ravus said, the warmth in his chest becoming panic as he readjusted the blanket around her. “You want to get on the train, but we have to wait our turn, okay?”

It was their turn on the ramp, and there was a girl standing there wearing an old-fashioned uniform. She checked their tickets, using a scanner to make sure it was correct, and then she handed it back to Ravus and wished them a safe trip.

The inside of the car was more like a fine dining restaurant, and that was by no accident. If the car was donated with a spoiled rich boy in mind, then it was designed with a spoiled rich boy in mind. Everything looked modern and sleek, and the seating looked luxurious.

Luna had stopped grunting and wiggling, and she turned her gaze all around the car. Her eyes were watery with tears, but she never shed them.

Part of Ravus was afraid that Luna had expected to see Noctis on the train car, but she gave no sign of being upset that he was not there. She was smart, Ravus reminded himself, and she understood more than she could let him know.

“Is it what you expected, Luna?”

Ravus found their private seating, and he found a space for her wheelchair inside. He engaged the brakes to keep her wheelchair from rolling during their trip, and then he sat in a seat across from her. Luna stared out the window as they waited for the train to move, and Ravus stayed quiet as she enjoyed the scenery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be updating this every five days this month with Christmas Day getting my final post of the year.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pushed this one ahead of schedule because that story I was working on was really annoying, and I didn’t want to force myself to write it when I was hating it so much.
> 
> This story is much more enjoyable for me.

“Could you blend this for me, please?” Ravus asked, pointing at a dish on the menu in front of him. “My sister has trouble eating solid foods.”

Ravus hated to ask a chef to put their food into a form they had not intended for it to be eaten, but the Mother of Pearl did not have many options that were easy for Luna to eat. It was unavoidable that he would have to be more demanding than he was comfortable with.

The server gave him a smile that almost looked sincere, and he jotted down the request on the tablet in his hand.

“It won’t be a problem, sir,” he said. “Would you like anything else?”

Ravus ordered one of the house specials for himself, and he splurged for a glass of wine, something he so rarely allowed himself to have because taking care of Luna was something he could not—nor wanted to—take a break from.

The server took the menu from him, and he bowed deeply before he took the order to the chef, a blonde woman who was moving at a lightning pace behind a circular bar. He came back a moment later to give each of them a glass of ice water to drink while they waited for their meal.

Luna watched everyone around the restaurant. It was an open space that sat in the middle of one of the most expensive hotels he had ever been to. Ravus had requested to sit under the shade so neither he nor Luna would get sunburnt while they ate.

She had been restless the last couple of hours on the train ride, but when they had gotten on the ferry to Galdin Quay, she had been fascinated with her surroundings again, quieting herself as she took in the vastness of the ocean between the two continents, and Ravus had been no less fascinated, having only seen most of the world outside of Tenebrae and Niflheim in pictures.

“Luna, are you cool enough?” Ravus asked. “It’s much hotter here than it gets back home.”

Ravus was sweating even though he was wearing a sleeveless shirt from the hotel’s gift shop.

He grabbed a sports bottle from the bag on the side of her wheelchair, and he carefully poured the ice water into it before he pressed the straw to her mouth for her take a sip from it.

The server returned a moment later with a shrimp and mollusks over rice dish for Ravus and fish blended together with tomato sauce for Luna. Before he spooned some fish into Luna’s mouth, he took a bite of it himself.

When they were about halfway through their meal, Ravus heard a familiar, deep voice, and he turned to find a large man strolling through the restaurant. His dark hair was longer than the last time he had seen him. He wore sunglasses to protect his sensitive amber eyes, and he wore a sleeveless shirt with a Lucis Caelum emblem, showing off his muscular frame and his enormous eagle tattoo.

Gladiolus waved at them, and Ravus returned the gesture with a nod. Luna grunted and wiggled as he approached them. He joined them at the table, and having already spent time with her once, he knew it was acceptable to grab her hand in greeting.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, and he released her hand as he turned to Ravus. “Hey, hope I’m not intruding.”

“She’s happy to see you,” Ravus said, watching Luna stare at their new guest.

“And I’m happy to see you. I hope you’re not expecting to see Noct already. This is supposed to be a surprise for him, so you won’t get to see him until later.”

“I have told her what to expect.”

“Has the trip gone well? You look dead tired.”

Ravus chuckled at that.

“That’s just my face. Something to look forward to when you turn thirty.”

“You actually look younger than me at thirty, so I don’t think you’re doing half bad.”

Just like it had been when they had visited Luna in Tenebrae a few years prior, it was odd to watch someone else feed his little sister while he enjoyed his own meal. It was also odd to be with someone who was a better conversationalist than himself because Gladio was the sort of person who never seemed to run out of things to say.

Once they were finished, Gladio, who had funded the entire trip anyway, paid for the meal, and then he showed them to his car to take them to Insomnia.

* * *

“Hey, Ravus.”

Ravus jolted awake, and a bright light assaulted his eyes as he looked around, finding Gladio smirking at him from the driver’s seat.

“We’re here, buddy,” Gladio said.

Ravus blinked as he adjusted to the light.

“Did I fall asleep?” he asked, voice raspy.

“Yeah, traveling takes a lot out of you.”

Gladio left the car, and he went to the back to pull out Luna’s wheelchair from the back of the SUV. Ravus shivered from the blast of cool air, and he shrugged on the jacket that Gladio had said he would need when they got into Insomnia.

Luna had also fallen asleep on the car ride, and he grabbed her hand while calling her name to wake her. He covered her with a blanket, and then he pulled her out of the car and placed her in her wheelchair.

Gladio had watched the whole thing while carrying their bags.

“I still don’t understand how you do that with one arm,” Gladio said.

Ravus just shrugged. He had had a lot of practice at it.

The Lucis Caelum home was somehow more impressive than it had been in the pictures. 

Everything about it was excessively large, a reminder that the Lucis Caelums, much like the Nox Fleurets, had once been the rulers of a country and given up only their rights as leaders but none of their properties.

It was so overwhelming to look at the massive building that it was no wonder that Noctis had chosen to spend his adolescence away from it. He imagined that it was easy to get lost in the building no matter how much time you spent inside of it.

Thanks to the property being modified to meet Noctis’s needs, there was no trouble following Gladiolus into the house. The front lobby was full of ancient relics that belonged in a museum. As Gladio lead them down a hall of ancient paintings, Ravus looked for the black spot Noctis had drawn onto one of them when he had been a little boy—a fact he had only learned because Ignis had taken to writing letters to him and Luna while Noctis had been missing for a long while.

“He’s in the kitchen,” Gladio said as he looked at a message on his phone. “It’s easier to go there first and then show you the royal bedrooms.”

The guest room being Noctis’s old room, Ravus reminded himself. It was a huge space that was bigger than any apartment he had stayed in after Niflheim had invaded Tenebrae.

By the time they made it to the kitchen, Ravus felt exhausted after taking in the splendor of the place.

“Hey, Princess,” Gladio called as he opened the door to the kitchen, and he used his bulky frame to block Noctis’s view of Luna and Ravus.

“What?” came Noctis’s muffled voice. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“I brought a surprise for you.”

The tone in Noctis’s voice was of excitement when he said, “Oh, yeah?”

Gladio stepped into the kitchen to hold open the door for them, revealing another overwhelmingly large room full of expensive appliances that Ravus’s mother would have drooled over had she survived the Imperial invasion. Ravus pushed Luna through the door.

Noctis was sitting near the refrigerator, and he held a bowl that he was dipping a potato chip into. His black hair was a wild mess about his head like he had taken a nap and not bothered to fix it upon waking up, and his large blue eyes widened upon seeing them.

“Luna! Ravus!” Noctis gasped.

“Hello, Noctis,” Ravus said, and Luna was cooing and wiggling in her chair.

“You’re here! In my house! In _Insomnia_!”

“We wanted to surprise you.”

“I am so surprised! And by the Six! I’m a greasy mess! Just give me a second.”

Noctis stuck both the bowl and his bag of chips into the refrigerator, and then he desperately looked around himself for something. Gladio tossed him a towel across the room, and Noctis wiped the mess off his hands and face before tossing the towel onto a nearby counter.

“It’s so nice to see you again!” Noctis said as he pushed his wheelchair toward them.

Noctis grabbed Luna’s hands, and he brought both of them to his face to kiss the back of both of them. Ravus could see the tears pooling in Noctis’s eyes as he smiled at Luna.

“You’re as lovely as ever, Luna,” he said, and then he shifted his watery gaze up to Ravus. “How long are you guys staying?”

“A week. We’ll be returning home the day after Christmas.”

“Oh, that’s plenty of time to drag you two all over the city.”

“Noct, some people like to relax over the holidays,” Gladio cut in, earning himself a stern look Noctis.

“Well, we’ll let our guests decide that, won’t we? Are you guys hungry? Iggy left us a ton of leftovers, so there’s plenty to eat.”

After Ravus picked which leftovers to eat, he followed Noctis into the main dining area, which was full of antique furniture that was almost as old as the Lucis Caelum castle. Ravus felt guilty leaving Gladio with the task of heating up their food and preparing something for Luna, but watching Luna listen to Noctis talk was more than enough to make the guilt fade away. She seemed so enthralled with everything the boy was saying, and for a moment, he thought he might have seen her cheeks flush as Noctis held her hand.

This trip was good for Luna, and he regretted rejecting their offer to pay for a trip to Insomnia so many times before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just noticed that I seem to always describe people who are good with people as “people who never seem to run out of things to say.” It’s my own social awkwardness showing, I guess. haha
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do have a few subscribers for this fic, and if you got an email for this and followed it only to realize that there was no new chapter, that’s because I am a big dumb. I’m sorry for any possible confusion, and now I have finally added a real update.

With the differences in time zones, it was no surprise that Ravus woke up with the room brighter than he had expected, but when he looked at the time on his charging cell phone, he realized that he had slept _longer_ than he should have. He threw the covers off himself, and he hastily pulled on pants and a T-shirt, one he had borrowed from Gladio. Then he bolted from the room to go to Luna’s room, which was Noctis’s old bedroom.

However, when he flung open the door, he found that the queen-sized bed was empty, except for a piece of paper. Frowning, Ravus picked up the paper, and he recognized the beautiful handwriting scrawled across it as Noctis’s. The note read:

“Hey, Ravus! You were so tired you slept through your alarm! We wanted to let you sleep, and we took Luna with us downstairs for her usual breakfast. We’ll hang out in the dining room until you wake up. ~Noctis”

Ever since Ravus had completed his own training as her caretaker, he had allowed no one else to care for Luna, and as he felt the swell of panic in his chest, he remembered that Noctis had two people in his life who had trained to be a nurse for him: both Ignis and Gladio. They were both perfectly capable—arguably more capable, considering they had two functional arms as opposed to his one.

As Ravus made his way to the dining room, he worried that he might have gotten lost in the enormous house until he heard Gladio’s familiar raucous laughter. He found the room, and he walked in on Noctis and Gladio play punching with each other. Luna turned her blue gaze from their antics to her brother. Relief washed over him as he saw she was fine.

Luna was clean, and she looked content—likely happy to be there but unable to express it. Noctis or Gladio had attempted to do her hair, but it was messier than Ravus would have left it, which was no surprise because neither of them had much experience working with her thin and delicate hair. They had probably been afraid of hurting her.

“Good morning,” Ravus said.

The two men stopped their mock-wrestling match, and they jerked their attention to Ravus.

“Ah, hey, Ravus,” Noctis greeted.

“Morning,” Gladio said.

“Hope you don’t mind that we gave you a bit of a break. We didn’t discuss it before, so…”

Ravus waved a dismissive hand as he joined them at the table. He grabbed her hand, and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her cheek.

“I trust you,” he said, and it was a surprise even to himself that he _did_ trust them to look after Luna. “And I appreciate the extra sleep.”

Noctis looked relieved, his shoulders lowering away from his ears, and he nodded.

Gladio left the dining room to fix Ravus some breakfast at Noctis’s insistence.

“I had a fruit smoothie that Ignis always makes me eat,” Noctis said, “so I gave it to her for breakfast. She didn’t spit it on me, so I think means she liked it.”

Ravus smirked at the memory of the time she had spit up food at Noctis, who had proven just how bad at cooking he was that day.

“So, have you thought about where you’d like to go while you’re here in Insomnia?” Noctis asked. “I know we said that we want you to relax, but I would hate for you to come all this way and not get to see something you would like to see.”

“I’m not sure where I would go,” Ravus said.

“It can be anything. You don’t have to worry about troubling us. I’m way more demanding than most people can handle.”

Noctis chuckled at himself. Ravus had noticed he made jokes like that often, but he had never heard any of his friends speak ill of him.

“I suppose I have always wanted to see the Citadel,” Ravus added. “It sounds so cliche, and it is your place of work. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to go there during your time off.”

“No, it’s fine. When I try to think about the place from an outsider’s perspective, going into the tallest building in the world sounds cool. Besides that, we have one of the best restaurants in the world. We should have dinner there this week.”

“I—” Ravus wanted to protest, but he knew that Noctis would insist. “I would like that very much.”

“Great. It’s a date, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am running behind on these, and I’ll admit it’s because I was playing a game (and not one I was enjoying, unfortunately). I’m done with it now, so hopefully that means one less distraction from writing. Of course, I still haven’t finished FFX, so I might still be horribly distracted from writing for a while.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am four days behind on the 25 Days of fics challenge, but I have plans on catching up before Christmas so I can focus on other stuff again.

The Citadel was twice as impressive in person than it had been in the pictures. Ravus stared up at the building as he followed Noctis and Gladio into it. It was the tallest building in Lucis, and it stretched so high into the sky that he would believe it could touch the clouds if he had not known better. Inside the building, however, was a whole different spectacle.

Ravus had heard horror stories of holiday shopping in Insomnia, but nothing prepared him for the sheer mass of people walking through the Citadel. There was wall to wall people, and the only person who seemed to be safe from jostling was Noctis because anyone who noticed him would steer clear of him with a slight look of fear on their face or pause and stare at him with their mouths agape. He was afraid that it would be too much for Luna, so he kept a close eye on her for any signs of distress.

They went through more secure backways to get to Noctis’s favorite restaurant. Even after their short excursion through the large crowd of people, it was a relief to have only security guards around. Once they made it onto the floor with the restaurant, they had to step into the crowd again, but this time, it was less overwhelming. There were fewer people to bump into them.

They turned into a restaurant with a Far East style logo above the doors. All the guests appeared to be wearing expensive formal clothing. Even though Ravus was wearing a rather expensive sweater, an early gift from Noctis, he felt like he did not belong there. He was unused to being around so much money. Their server was friendly as he seated them and took their drinks.

“You look terrified,” Gladio observed, chuckling.

Ravus felt heat rise to his cheeks.

“This is all rather—” Ravus considered his next word. “—overwhelming.”

“Do you mean this place or all of the people?”

“It is very crowded.”

“I’m sorry, man. Noct and I are so used to it we don’t think about it too much.”

“Oh, are you having a bad time, Ravus?” Noctis asked, pausing in reading the menu aloud to Luna.

“No,” Ravus was quick to say. “No, this is all wonderful. I just didn’t know what to expect.”

“Yeah, people go crazy over the holidays. They wait until the last minute to get all their shopping done instead of shopping earlier in the year like reasonable people.”

“Says the guy who was panic shopping on the Internet last night,” Gladio said, earning himself a glare from his husband.

The server came back soon after. Ravus let Noctis pick something for him because the prices on the menu were high enough to give him an aneurism, and besides that, he knew little about Eastern cuisine.

As they waited for their meals to arrive, they discussed plans on where to go in the Citadel. Other than dining and shopping, there were few exciting things for a tourist to do beyond going to the roof, which was next on the list for them to do. Gladio brought up visiting the office, but Noct was quick to shoot the idea down, reminding him he was supposed to be on vacation from that place.

When their meals arrived, Ravus discovered that Noctis had, of course, ordered him a seafood dish. In Tenebrae, they certainly had seafood of their own, but it was not as abundant as it was in Lucis. It took him a few bites to decide how he felt about the unfamiliar mix of flavors, he found that he liked it. When he tasted Luna’s blended dinner, he found it was a chicken dish rather than seafood, but it was just as delicious.

Noctis insisted on everyone ordering dessert, and with Ravus’s sweet tooth, it was difficult for him to say “no” to it. As he bit into his brownie, he learned for a second time since they had arrived in Insomnia, that Lucians preferred a stronger taste of sugar than he was used to. Luna drank her milkshake without spitting it up, so he assumed she enjoyed it.

Ravus purposefully tuned out the cost of their meal as Noctis generously picked up the tab, and then he followed Gladio and Noctis once again through the Citadel. They went back into the security halls, and they used an elevator that went all the way to the top of the building. Excitement bubbled through his chest as he anticipated what it was going to look like up there.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stop at the office while we’re here?” Gladio teased Noctis.

“Everyone that I want to see I’ll be seeing on Christmas,” Noctis said, “so I feel no compulsion to go there.”

Gladio chuckled.

Ravus leaned down to check Luna, making sure her blanket was tucked around her to keep her from getting cold. Insomnia was not nearly as cold as Tenebrae during the Winter, but he still wanted to make sure she was comfortable.

When they reached the top, it was no surprise to see that there were several families up there already, and there were not so many people that it was overwhelming. Although some people did stop to stare at them again.

They approached the edge of the building, where there was a glass railing that allowed a full view of the world below them. Ae left Luna near the railing to lean over the railing himself. As a tall man, he had never imagined he would find heights intimidating, but when he took a good look at the tops of the surrounding buildings, the tiny specs that were vehicles, his heart picked up speed and his legs wobbled. He gripped the railing more tightly just in case a slight breeze came along and made him topple over.

Ravus felt a heavy clap on his shoulder, and it felt like a miracle that his knees did not buckle. He turned to look and found Gladio leaning over the railing as well.

“It’s been a while since the last time I was up here,” he said, and he chuckled. “A little scarier than I remember.”

“Dude, I forgot you can see the Manor from here,” Noctis said.

Ravus turned toward the voice. Noctis had chosen to stay back a few feet, but he pointed his finger toward something. He followed the finger, but it took him a moment to find the Lucis Caelum. As big as that building was, even from the top of the Citadel, it looked so tiny.

Gladio and Noctis spent a few minutes pointing out other buildings as well. Some of them were places Ravus had heard of, but most of them were unfamiliar to him. He wondered if Noctis had planned on taking him and Luna to any of those places. There was so much of the city to explore.

Ravus turned to Luna. She had displaced her blanket again, but she looked content as she stared out at the city herself. Not for the first time, he wondered what she was thinking, what kinds of things she would say if she had the ability to.

“Let’s get a picture,” Noctis said as he pulled out his cell phone. “Something to take home with you.”

Ravus rolled his eyes because he was not fond of having his picture taken, but he had learned that Noctis was always thinking about capturing the moment. It should not have been a surprise to him because he had a whole box full of pictures he had sent to Luna throughout the years. He stood next to Luna.

Noctis took a couple of pictures both with and without Gladio standing next to them. He ordered them to the other side of the building so they could get a different view in the background. They pointed out even more buildings, including Cor Leonis’s house, which Ravus could not find himself, and they went back to taking pictures.

“All right, I’ll stop annoying you now,” Noctis said, chuckling. “What should we do next? We can go back downstairs and go shopping, or we can go somewhere else.”

Ravus looked at Luna as he retucked her blanket around her. She was actively looking around, showing no sign that she was too tired to do anything else.

“I was hoping to look at a few other places while we were here,” Ravus said.

Gladio and Noctis both smiled and nodded.

“All right, shopping it is,” Gladio said, and he lead the way back to the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've burned myself out on Final Fantasy music, so I need to figure out something else to listen to while writing. Hmm...
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am indeed hiding from my family to post this. How'd you guess? hehe
> 
> I'll warn you that I'm not a fan of this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.
> 
> Happy holidays!

With Noctis being the last remaining Lucis Caelum, he had only his close friends to call family, and it had not struck him until he had found himself sitting around a table full of people that he had realized he was among one of those close friends. 

Ravus had been eighteen when Noctis had sent his first letter to Luna. Regis had apparently been keeping an eye on the last remaining Nox Fleurets; he had made calls to their foster home every once in a while to make sure they were doing fine, going so far to send their foster parents money to make sure everyone was always clothed and fed. When Noctis had been struggling with adjusting to life after his accident, he had suggested that he send letters to Luna, and thus began their friendship.

It had taken Ravus a while to realize that their friendship had included himself. The letters had always been addressed to Luna, but Ravus had always been the one who would have to read them aloud. He was the one who wrote the letters in return. Luna had seemed to enjoy them so much, cooing and wiggling at the pictures and trinkets that Noctis would sometimes send along with them, that it had not even bothered him in the slightest to think of Noctis as Luna’s friend rather than his own.

In reality, it was Noctis and Ravus who had been the ones exchanging letters, sharing pictures, and comforting each other through their hardships. When Noctis had visited Tenebrae, he had said as much, that he had considered Ravus just as much of a good friend as he did Gladio, Ignis, Prompto, and everyone else he had grown up with, but part of Ravus had not believed it. Part of him had thought that if Luna were to be taken from the world, the letters from Noctis would cease.

Ravus, even at the age of thirty, had not recognized the hollowness he felt in his chest at the thought. It had taken him many years of inadequate therapy to help him understand most of his emotions, and loneliness had been a cold companion of his throughout his life, when he had suffered at the hands of Imperial scientists, when the Tenebraen government had left him to figure out how to care for himself and his little ill little sister, and throughout the rest of his adulthood. Luna had helped dispel that emptiness, but it would always return, especially on days when Luna was being fussy and inconsolable.

Noctis, a boy who had experienced a deep loneliness himself, had been that quiet beacon of hope that he had not realized he had come to rely on, and it was not until he met the people who had helped form him that he found the proof he needed that Noctis was not some sheltered rich boy who was spoiled with old money and significantly more privileged than anyone else that Ravus had ever known. He was a man who made an honest effort to be a good person, who cherished every person he had in his life and sometimes tried too hard to express it.

Ravus watched as everyone talked, eyes flitting about the table to make sure everyone was aware that they were invited to the conversation themselves. Crowe Altius, a woman he had just met that morning, made it a point to sometimes lean toward Luna and tell her something that would make the wheelchair-bound girl give a coo in appreciation. Nyx, Cor’s husband that he had also met for the first time, had shown no hesitation in wrapping him in a warm hug, mother-henned almost as much as Ignis did.

It was strange to sit with so many people. It was noisy. It made a warmth surge through Ravus. Although it was admittedly tainted with a hint of jealousy that he had not gotten to experience this until he was well into adulthood.

A heavy hand jolted Ravus out of his thoughts, and he became aware of a familiar voice speaking to him. He turned and met with icy blue eyes. Cor Leonis’s eyebrows were pinched together as he watched him.

“I’m sorry?” Ravus said, guilt clawing its way into his chest.

“Are you feeling okay?” Cor asked in a hushed tone. “You just zoned out there.”

Ravus felt some of the inner warmth seep into his cheeks.

“Yes, I am fine,” he said, and he tapped his temple with finger. “Sometimes I get a little lost in here.”

Cor nodded. His features softened, corners of mouth turning down for just a moment. Ravus knew from Noctis’s letters that Cor was just as prone as Ravus to remembering things of his past and zoning out, and he thought that expression might have been “understanding.” The old man gave his shoulder a squeeze, and then he withdrew his hand to his dinner plate.

Ravus tuned back into the conversations around him. Noctis and Prompto were teasing each other about something they had done in the past, mock-glaring and giggling at each other, and Gladio elbowed Ignis to grab the blind man's attention so they could tease the both of them. Nyx teased all of them, and Crowe and Cor teased him.

It was loud, so different from the quiet Christmas he would spend with Luna, and the feeling that stirred in him were bittersweet, grateful that they made an effort to make sure he felt like a part of it, rather than an outsider, but he felt like an outsider all the same because his family, except for one precious person, had been taken from him when he was so young. After experiencing the craziness of the city of Insomnia, he was certain he preferred the calm of Tenebrae, but he had family there, one that had always been there. For once, he had no doubt that they always would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did write that Cor has “children,” as in more than just Prompto.
> 
> I hope this chapter doesn’t feel cheap because it’s just an inner monologue of Ravus with very little interactions with everyone else. It’s very different from what I normally allow myself to write. Not to make excuses, but I am not feeling well on top of being burnt out. It was difficult for me to think of anything else to write.
> 
> I am also severely behind on this little self-imposed challenge of mine. I’ll try to finish the series I started this month before the end of the year, but I can’t guarantee 25 chapters anymore, unfortunately.
> 
> Writing this was interesting. While I had already had some things figured out about Ravus, I do feel I understand this version of him slightly more. I am considering expanding this by one more chapter because it doesn’t feel as complete as I had hoped it would.
> 
> I do plan on exploring this AU more deeply. I’ve been sitting on it for several months longer than the first project I posted of it, and I need to stop sitting on my ideas for such a stupidly long time. haha
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Don't be afraid to let me know what you think!


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